Sabin Shrestha powers and influence. As a consequence, there is a poor balance of ethnic relations in Nepal. Further issues that the country is faced with include heterogeneity of culture, religion, and geography. These issues, coupled with Nepal’s long history of migration, imply that all inhabitants of the country are settlers. Therefore, enabling the implementation of equal social and political rights without prejudice to cultural diversity is one of the key challenges Nepal is faced with. That is, it is essential for the country to find an adequate compromise between the state and its citizens in terms of equal rights and responsibilities. Equality here implies that all citizens are equal and the state, which guarantees the rights of citizens, is itself seen as neutral and treating all citizens equally.1 Exclusion and marginalisation from full citizenship are not only issues for outsiders, migrants and new settlers in a country. Groups like women, ethnic minorities and the poor can fall outside full citizenship in their own country. Experiences of citizenship are therefore also dependent on societal position and roles – roles that are determined by social relations of unequal power formed on the basis of race, ethnicity, caste, class and gender.2 The right to citizenship is a basic right of every individual. It is therefore a right of women. It is also ensured by various international human rights conventions to which Nepal is a state party. The UDHR clearly states that everyone has the right to a nationality and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his/her nationality nor denied the right to change nationality.3 Article 9 of CEDAW provides women with equal rights to men to acquire, change or retain their nationality and also grants equal nationality rights to their children. Moreover, in the 30th CEDAW session in January 2004, the CEDAW committee provided strong concluding remarks in the 2nd and 3rd periodic reports to Nepal to “repeal or amend article 9 of the constitution, which permits discrimination against women in the area of citizenship”.4 The first Nepalese Citizenship Act was enacted in 1952. This act specified that citizenship was acquired by birth if either of the parents is a Nepalese citizen, or by marriage to a Nepalese man who had been permanently living in Nepal with his family, by anyone living in Nepal for more than 5 years and by children born abroad to a Nepalese father and mother. The Nepalese Constitution of 1962 included a citizenship chapter for the first time in the country’s constitutional history. It stated that a person was eligible for Nepalese citizenship if he/she had been born in Nepal, or if either of his/her parents was a Nepalese citizen, or, if a woman, if she had a matrimonial relationship with a Nepalese citizen, or if he/she had already acquired Nepalese citizenship. The constitution stated that acquisition and termination of citizenship were determined by law and foreigners should have to fulfil certain conditions to acquire Nepalese citizenship. The 1964 Nepal Citizenship Act categorised three ways of acquiring Nepalese citizenship: by descent, by naturalisation and through honorary citizenship. Citizenship by descent could be acquired by anyone whose father was a Nepalese citizen at the time of his/her birth, any child in Nepal the whereabouts of whose parents were not known, and any child born within a reasonable time after the death of his/her Nepalese father. Citizenship by naturalisation could be acquired by anybody who had resided in Nepal for more than 15 years, women who had a matrimonial relation with a Nepalese man, and the sons, daughters and descendants of Nepalese citizens. 1 2 3 4 2 Constitutional Lawyers’ Forum, Citizenship (Kathmandu: Classic Printing Service, 2068 B.S) 566. Ibid. p. 567. Cited in Meer and Sever, 2004. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 15. FWLD and UNIFEM, Op.cit. p. 34. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2017/8 - © 2017 Author